Should Bagley Come Off Of The Bench When He Returns?

The coaching staff of the Sacramento Kings is going to have a decision to make regarding the starting lineup when Marvin Bagley returns from injury

The Sacramento Kings find themselves without their two cornerstone players due to early-season injuries, but one of them could be making his return around the beginning of December.

The Kings will have a decision to make once Marvin Bagley’s injured thumb heals. The second-year big man began the season as the team’s starting power forward but was ruled out for 4-6 weeks after the first game of the year.

Since then, Nemanja Bjelica has taken over the role of starting at the four spot, and has been one of the Kings’ top performers of the young season. He is shooting 50% from deep and 54.1% overall, and is a half-rebound per game shy of his career-high in that category.

It is Bjelica’s ability to score during the game’s opening minutes that makes him so important to the Kings’ starting lineup. Last week against Atlanta, he scored the first six points of the game for Sacramento and finished the quarter with eight. In Tuesday night’s victory over the Trail Blazers, Bjelica had seven points in the opening frame, and was seemingly the only King that could buy a bucket as Buddy Hield and the rest of the squad were ice cold to start the game.

The Kings still have anywhere between 6 and 10 games left before Bagley returns (barring any set backs) so there is still time to evaluate the current starting lineup and the play of Bjelica before any decisions are made. But if the trend of Bjelica coming out hot continues and Sacramento continues to prosper from his play early in games, they may have a lineup issue when Bagley finally does return.

The benefits to having Bagley be a part of the second unit don’t exactly outweigh the disadvantages. But the Kings could keep Bjelica’s hot-hand in to start games, and Bagley can provide a much-needed spark off of a bench that relies solely on Bogdan Bogdanovic for one.

But delegating Bagley to the bench would bring waves of questions as well. Would the Kings start a second-round pick over the guy that they opted to draft instead of Luka Doncic? How would his father, who has been vocal on social media when his son is lacking playing time, handle the situation? What would a move like this do to Bagley’s development?

No matter what decision the coaching staff makes, it is likely that Bagley will be on a minutes restriction for a couple of games upon his return. Coach Luke Walton can tinker with his lineups during this time in order to get a feel for what each player brings to the table with the usual starting lineup.

Should Marvin Bagley miss eight more games, his return would come on December 2nd, at home against the Bulls. The Kings, however, have not issued a timetable for his return.